It’s not horribly unusual for some modern games to get remasters or remakes when they’re clearly not necessary. The most obvious example of this is The Last of Us getting a remake less than ten years after the original came out. The Talos Principle: Reawakened isn’t as pointless as that was, thanks in part to a whole new expansion that’s nearly as large as the game’s previous one, as well as a puzzle editor. Still, it seems like a convenient excuse to re-release the game. It’s still a heavy puzzle game with lots of content and a new coat of paint, though, so let’s take a step back and wonder how the hell we’re going to make any of this work.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened, for all intents and purposes, does seem to be more of a remake than a remaster. The game is now running on Unreal Engine 5 instead of Croteam’s Serious Engine, and it appears that everything was rebuilt from the ground up. However, pretty much all of the original game and its expansion are mostly unchanged, offering practically the exact same puzzles with the exact same designs. Case in point, when I got hopelessly stuck, I just looked up a video of the puzzle from the original game and the solutions always worked perfectly.
Everything looks better than in the original, of course, but the original wasn’t an ugly game by any means. The world is prettier and more detailed here, but not to a point that many will probably care that much about. Strangely, the game’s textures are lower resolution than the modern standard, which struck me as odd. Why go through the trouble of improving the visuals of a game that’s not even old enough just to use textures that aren’t up to snuff?
But the graphics aren’t the hook here, obviously. The biggest draw is the aforementioned new expansion, titled “In the Beginning,” which (big story spoilers for an 11-year-old game incoming) takes place when Alexandra and her team were putting the simulation together. This expansion functions just like the base game, as it has you using a hub to go between areas containing puzzles that reward you with Sigils needed to open doors.
These areas feature little icons that function as bug reports for the team making the simulation and are often fairly humorous. The puzzles in this expansion are quite hard and were designed for people who have already mastered the base game and The Road to Gehenna, so you’re going to want to bring your A-game. It’s a fairly curious situation, though. Croteam making another expansion for The Talos Principle instead of doing another one for its sequel is just a very strange choice to me. Granted, the sequel already got its own expansion, but usually puzzle games go forward and not backward like this.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened also features a full puzzle editor, so players can make their own devious creations to torment one another. I didn’t mess with this much as I absolutely lack any of the skills necessary to build decent puzzles, but this is something that might potentially make this a must-buy for series fans. Either that, or it’ll end up loaded to the brim with terrible fan-created puzzles that are mostly unsolvable. Considering how much people like the series, however, I find it likely that there’ll be lots of good stuff within a couple of weeks of release.
In case you’re not already aware, The Talos Principle puts you in control of an AI within a simulation that has to solve puzzles, all within the context of determining if that specific AI can demonstrate itself to be equal to a human. Puzzles revolve around a handful of objects, including boxes, jammers, laser reflectors, air current generators, and a machine that creates time clones of your character, and all of the above. Your reward for solving puzzles are Tetromino-esque pieces called Sigils that you’ll use to solve block puzzles to open gates, with the goal of climbing a tower.
It’s similar to the Portal games, but it definitely takes the challenge to the next level. The game isn’t at all shy about seriously testing your mettle, sometimes by asking you to do things that it hasn’t taught you are possible or by demanding some seriously out-of-the-box thinking from time to time. Bluntly, it’s a tough game and if you’re bad at puzzle games, this one will not hold your hand. It will repeatedly blow you up with mines, though. Remember the mines? I wish I didn’t.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a pretty great game and if you really want to check out the new expansion and play fan-made levels, it’s worth the price of admission. New players who haven’t picked the game up yet will also find a lot to like. With that said, people who already own the original who don’t necessarily care about another five or six hours of new puzzles or community ones probably won’t feel the need to upgrade. Despite the game being just as good as it ever was, the fact that it exists at all is still a question mark.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened: A greater version of a great game with a new expansion and puzzle editor, but one can't help but wonder why these features weren't just ported into the original release. – Andrew Farrell
Take a look at our previous review:
South of Midnight PC review — At least “mid” is already in the title |
